Toshiba Satellite P50T-BST2N01 Review

Introduction & Design

A masterpiece by Monet. The Grand Canyon. A city skyline at night. Kate Upton. We've all seen things that are stunning, that make you simply gaze in admiration. Now Toshiba has introduced one, a 15.6-inch notebook that wins the resolution wars: With 4K monitors still relatively scarce and expensive, the company has shipped the world's first 4K laptop.

The Toshiba Satellite P50T-BST2N01 (surely the clunkiest name ever given a flagship product) boasts an in-plane switching (IPS) touch screen with 3,840x2,160 resolution. That's the equivalent of a grid of four full HD or 1,920x1,080 displays, and it delivers sharpness and detail that has to be seen to be believed. We've seen a thousand demo screens in our time, but we sat agog at the razor-sharp sample video Toshiba loaded on our test unit. We went to our favorite wallpaper site and spent hours downloading and admiring 4K images, gawking at blades of grass, textures of rocks and moss, animals' fur, birds' feathers.

The Satellite will inevitably be compared to Apple's pioneering MacBook Pro With Retina Display, which offers 2,880x1,800 resolution with 220 pixels per inch (ppi). That system has been topped by the Dell XPS 15 and a few others with 3,200x1,800 resolution—in the Dell's case, 235 ppi. But even the XPS 15 must step aside for Toshiba's 3,840x2,160 and 282 ppi—60 percent more pixels than the Retina Pro.

Toshiba plays the value card, too. All three super-high-res systems come with Intel Core i7 power. The Apple and Dell are each $1,999—the MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of solid-state storage, and Intel Iris Pro graphics, and the XPS 15 with 16GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive plus 32GB SSD, and Nvidia GeForce GT 750M graphics. The P50T-BST2N01 slides in a couple of C's below them, at $1,799 with 16GB of memory, a 1TB hybrid hard drive, and AMD Radeon R9 M265X graphics.

The $200 you save can buy you a deluxe laptop bag—not a bad idea, since at 5.1 pounds the Satellite outweighs the thinner, 4.5-pound Apple and Dell. (One reason is that it's the only one of the three to include an optical drive, for users still intent on burning CDs and DVDs.)

It would be nice if it could buy you a spare battery, but the P50T's is non-swappable—a shame, since lighting up four 1080p displays takes a severe toll on battery life. (More on that in a minute.) Another shame is that speed demons can't configure a P50T with all-solid-state storage, as Retina Pro and XPS 15 buyers can; the 1TB hard drive with 8GB of flash is the only option.

The greatest shame of all is that, as with 4K HDTVs, there isn't enough 4K content to enjoy on the Toshiba's sensational screen. But for high-res image or video editors, or anyone seeking the color accuracy that comes with Technicolor certification (more on that in a minute, too), the Satellite P50T-BST2N01 is worth a look, worth an ogle, worth a stare.

Design

The Toshiba is a symphony in brushed aluminum, from its linear-textured lid (accented by a chrome Toshiba logo) to its palm rest (accented by a chrome strip around the touch pad). A medium-sized black bezel surrounds the mirror-glossy display, and a speaker grille and power button occupy the space between the screen and keyboard.

Two USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet jack, and the DVD+RW drive occupy the 14.9 by 9.6 by 1.1-inch system's left edge. Two more USB 3.0 ports, headphone and microphone jacks, and an HDMI port are on the right, and an SD card slot is on the front edge. Video editors and Macophiles may quibble that there's no Thunderbolt port, but the USB 3.0 ports should be quick enough for most peripherals.